A bunch of puppies and a cat try to break into a house. That is until a cat figures out how to open the door.

Cat intelligence is the capacity of the domesticated cat to learn, solve problems, and adapt to its environment. Research has also shown feline intelligence to include the ability to acquire new behavior that applies previously learned knowledge to new situations, communicating needs and desires within a social group, and responding to training cues.

Taken as a whole, cats have excellent memories. However, relationships with humans, individual differences in intelligence, and age may affect memory. Cats adapt to the environment that they are in easily because they can recall what they have learned in the past and adapt these memories to the current situation to protect themselves throughout their lives.

Many of the cat's remarkable mental and physical abilities are dismissed as simply instinctive. However, just as humans are born with innate communication skills but must learn over time to master a language, cats refine many of their inborn abilities through practice.


The widely-held belief that they learn through observation and imitation of their mother or other cats is now being called into question. Cats do learn, but in a different way than do humans or dogs; they have a special kind of intelligence.